Evelyn Hsieh, Michael Wong — Vows

The couple were “tunneled” into their reception by their wedding party to the tune of the Lonely Island comedy hit song “I’m on a Boat.”

Matt Roth for The New York Times

April 19, 2013

Vows

By WILL STOREY

As a couple, Michael Chung-Yun Wong and Evelyn Zu-Sing Hsieh are often at odds. Ms. Hsieh, 29, loves documentaries, NPR and Benjamin Franklin; Mr. Wong is an ardent fan of Justin Bieber and the Backstreet Boys, and enjoys television so much that he has been known to leave it on even when he’s not in the room.

Then there’s politics: “Evelyn definitely voted for Obama,” Mr. Wong said. “I have not told her who I voted for, and she does not want to know.”

If that seems hazardous to romance, consider what Mr. Wong calls a tenet of his dating philosophy: “I didn’t want to tell her I loved her until I knew I wanted to marry her.”

Yet Ms. Hsieh, who not only voted for President Obama, but also works for him as a speechwriter for the Office of Public Engagement at the White House does share with Mr. Wong an abiding, flourishing faith. For the couple, who are both 29, religion has long informed their lives, from childhood onward.

“Love is definitely about feelings and emotions and poetry,” she said, “but for me it’s about sacrificing for the other person, putting their feelings before your own.”

Mr. Wong sees things through the prisms of his religious views as well as his training as an information technology analyst. “I like to apply black and white to a topic that is traditionally gray,” he said of courtship.

Ms. Hsieh is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants and a granddaughter of a physician whose patients included Chiang Kai-shek. She left the University of California, San Diego, in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree and a passion for human rights. She went to Bosnia-Herzegovina, where she taught English and helped distribute aid to poor families. Returning to the United States, she received a master’s in theological studies from Harvard Divinity School. Then, seeking a practical application for her altruism, she got another master’s, in journalism, from Columbia.

She went to work at the Kennedy School of Government in 2009, and it was while living in Boston that she watched an old episode of “The West Wing” and began thinking about becoming a White House intern. She was accepted and arrived in Washington in 2011. She moved in with friends of friends from Harvard and tried to build a social life from scratch. “I asked my girlfriends to pray for two things,” she said. “That I would find a community of women that I really click with, and that I find a partner.”

The bride danced with her father, Paul Hsieh, at the reception after changing from her white gown and veil into a traditional red Chinese wedding dress.

Matt Roth for The New York Times

By that point, Ms. Hsieh said, she had had one serious romance, during her college days with a young man she had known from high school.

Two weeks after she asked her friends to pray for her, she added, “my roommate brought some friends over to watch a movie.”

One of those friends was Mr. Wong, whose parents, an engineer and a teacher, were evangelical Christians and had settled in Minnesota after emigrating from Hong Kong.

As a teenager, Mr. Wong said, he had been dismayed by the lack of advice on relationships with women. In his senior year of high school he came across a book for Christian singles, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” by Joshua Harris, that became his dating bible. It influenced him as he entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to study information technology and, later, as he started his career. (He is now a business analyst at CACI, an information technology company in Arlington, Va.)

“The main principle of the book is that Jesus died for us,” he said, “and we should be applying that sacrifice to the dating world, putting that other person’s interests in front of yours.”

He soon saw in Ms. Hsieh a life lived within that framework. Though they became intrigued with each other that night at her apartment and together indulged in a mutual passion for ice skating, things took a serious turn during a lunch at his church, Ambassador Bible Church, just outside Washington. The congregation met at a high school and Ms. Hsieh excused herself and began to clean up. When he asked her why she was doing that, she told him she felt the need to serve others.

“From that point, he made it clear he was here to serve me,” she said. They had a frank discussion about marriage, commitment and sacrifice, and agreed to devote themselves to each other, to the glory of God and to serving others.

A relationship proceeded, though the word “love” did not enter into it. When they discussed previous relationships, Mr. Wong told Ms. Hsieh that former girlfriends had been upset that he had not expressed affection. She told him she did not expect him to say those sorts of things to her.

The couple at the altar at the Del Ray United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Va.

Matt Roth for The New York Times

She said that in her previous relationship, she did not understand the meaning of love. Mr. Wong, she said, “was more legalistic about it. For me, it was more experience related.”

Though the word itself was not spoken, the feeling did manifest itself, as in the time he took her to a party for one of his friends. She knew almost no one other than Mr. Wong and felt utterly out of place. Afterward, she apologized for not being more outgoing.

She said he smiled and reassured her with comforting words. “I may not like every part of you,” he said, “but I accept all of you.” Ms. Hsieh later said that she “literally could feel my heart and soul heal from his words.”

Grace Jan, a mutual friend, sees moments like that as a microcosm for why the couple are a perfect fit. “His confidence fits in with her need to fit in,” she said.

Another time, Ms. Hsieh returned from a long, exhausting run and nearly passed out from dehydration. Mr. Wong came over and she said, in a state of near delirium, “If only I had some coconut water.” The next day, she said, she received this e-mail from Amazon.com: “Mikey Wong has ordered you a monthly supply of coconut water.”

Though he sometimes comes across with an almost studied seriousness, Mr. Wong said he enjoys a lighter side of himself that finds expression with Ms. Hsieh. “We’re just two very silly people who like to instigate jokes and play word puns,” he wrote in an e-mail.

“I think Evelyn possesses some qualities I admire and like, even though they may conflict with mine,” he added. “She’s an extrovert who also thinks about others before herself. This trait forces the selfish introvert inside of me to often rethink decisions or thoughts. She also has a passion for social justice, which challenges me to push myself and not be a complacent suburban Christian.”

They were married on April 6 at the Del Ray United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Va. After the Rev. Kenji Adachi, the pastor of the Ambassador Bible Church, led the couple through their vows, he noted that they were about to exchange their first kiss on the lips. “No pressure,” he added.

“Evelyn is one of the most giving people I’ve ever met, almost too much so,” said Sophia Lai, the maid of honor. “Someone could take advantage of that, but Mikey wouldn’t. He reminds her that she can be loved and cared for.”

Correction: April 19, 2013

An earlier version of this report misspelled the first name of the maid of honor. She is Sophia Lai, not Sofia. It also was imprecise in citing from where the groom’s parents had emigrated. It was Hong Kong, not China.

Correction: April 28, 2013

The Vows column last Sunday, about Michael Chung-Yun Wong and Evelyn Zu-Sing Hsieh, misstated the groom’s course of study at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. It was information technology, not engineering.